1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a substrate gap adjusting device which adjusts a gap between substrates bonded through a sealant into a proper state, to a substrate gap adjusting method, and to a method of manufacturing a liquid crystal display device.
2. Related Art
In general, a manufacturing process of a liquid crystal display device includes injecting liquid crystal into a space between a pair of substrates bonded through a sealant and sealing an injection port after injecting the liquid crystal. Sealing the injection port is generally performed in a state where a pressure is applied to the substrate so that a substrate gap becomes proper, as described in JP-A-2000-347198. According to such a technique, the substrate gap is maintained in a proper state even through the application of the pressure is released after sealing.
In the sealing process, various shapes of substrates are provided. As one example among them, multiple counter substrates having a diagonal width of 1 to 2 inches are disposed to correspond to single parts on a wafer-shaped substrate. In practice, the process of sealing a composite constructed in such a manner includes a process of adjusting a substrate gap in which the respective single parts are manually pressurized one by one. That is because, if all the single parts are pressurized at a time by the pressurizing device so that a substrate gap is adjusted, the pressurizing device impedes the sealing operation.
However, if a substrate is directly pressurized so as to adjust the substrate gap, a minute flaw can occur on the surface of the substrate. Particularly, when the singles parts are manually pressurized as described above, such a problem easily occurs. Further, in the manual pressurizing, only one sheet of substrate should be pressurized at a time. Therefore, the processing takes a time. Further, it takes a long time for an operator to get proficient.